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Chapter Two
It had been three days since Kase had bothered to answer my calls. Worse, he’d sounded different each time I’d talked to him, his voice more strained.
I’d chalked it up to stress at first. We had been through a lot, after all.
Now, though, I couldn’t shake the worry that it was something more. I’d had this creeping fear since returning from hell that Lilith would try to get to me through one of the men, that she’d do something horrible to them. She’d proven herself capable and vicious, and the fear plagued me that I’d show up to find someone I cared for gone.
So when Kase decided to ignore me, I figured it was time for a morein his facemethod of confrontation. It was easy to ignore my calls, but I could make the job a lot tougher in person.
Thus, I knocked on his door at nine in the morning. Where else would he be? Taking a nice sunny stroll somewhere?
There was no answer at first, leaving me standing on his porch like a spurned one-night stand who just wouldn’t take the hint.
“Let me in,” I said, sure he was on the other side, listening to me. “Because I can be very loud and disruptive.”
“You should go home,” he answered through the door, his voice low. “I will call you later.”
“Sorry, but you don’t seem to know how to use your phone. Not a chance.”
“I am not opening this door. If you wish to wait on the porch all day, you’re more than welcome to. It is your time you will waste, not mine.”
My mouth dropped open at the smug bastard’s words. He was so sure he had me there, that I’d listen and go home like a good girl, that I’d wait until he decided to call me.
Has he even met me?
“Oh, I’ll show you waiting,” I said, knowing damn well he could hear me through the door, before I pulled my shoulders back and raised my voice. “It doesn’t matter if you want to claim it or not—it’s your baby! I swear, Kase, I’ll take your ass to court if I have to. You’re not going to walk just out on us—”
The door opened and I found myself yanked inside the poorly lit house. “I’ve killed mortals for less,” Kase muttered, along with other insults and threats I didn’t catch.
He shut the door behind me, locking it.
It was funny how different it felt from the last time I’d been there, back when I’d shown up to get information about Olin, when him twisting that lock had made me want to bolt. Then, I’d been nervous. The thought of being alone in Kase’s house—in any vampire’s house—had made me wonder if I’d end up as a cautionary tale to stupid women who made horrible choices.
Woman goes into vampire lair and gets killed—nobody is surprised.
Now he was cursing and not-at-all-subtly threatening my life, and I wasn’t afraid in the least. Everything had changed. I recalled the press of his lips to mine, the touch of his hands over my body.He was difficult and stubborn andmine.
Iknewhim, and while he might growl and bare his fangs when he wanted to, I didn’t believe he’d really hurt me.
“Why are you avoiding me?” I asked as he walked past me, farther into his place, into the dim rooms. “And why aren’t you turning on the lights? Are you having a midlife crisis? Is this some sort of vampire moping?”
He went to the kitchen before turning, the counter between us, his face bathed in shadows. “I haven’t been hiding from you, and if I am only at midlife now, well, I’m not sure I can fathom another few thousand years of life.”
I paused, his words not registering because of something else that struck me. As I so often had heard from teachers as a kid, it wasn’t what I said but how I said it.
“What do you want?” His question shook me free, let me push off my worries. I was just being paranoid. It was nothing more than Lilith, and the stress of our investigation stalling out.
“I’ve been calling you for days.”
“I’ve been busy. We were in hell for what turned out to be nearly a month’s time here. In case you have forgotten, I have responsibilities to the coven that needed tending.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Well, your coven problems aren’t going to matter much if, you know, the world basically ends because we can’t find and stop Lilith in time.”
“Does that mean you have discovered where she is?”
The question was harsh, and it made me pull back. Kase could be difficult, but he wasn’t usually like that with me, at least not since we’d bartered some sort of understanding. In fact, what I’d come to find was that his sharp tongue was usually nothing more than akeep awaysign he used when he wanted me to be cautious, when he wanted space.
Which again pricked my senses.
